Omnichannel

Outdoor gear and apparel retailer REI was one of the early pioneers in the e-commerce industry, launching its first website in 1996. That online experience has changed quite a bit in the nearly 20 years since its launch, but one thing remains the same: the company continues to try to provide its members (it's a co-op) the best shopping experience possible. In a keynote presentation yesterday at the Shop.org Annual Summit in Seattle, REI's President and CEO Jerry Stritzke, as well as its Senior Vice President of Digital Retail Brad Brown discussed how REI is evolving its digital properties into the 21st century flagship store.

Subscription commerce — a business model where customers pay a subscription fee and in return receive a product delivered to them on a recurring basis — is a growing trend in the retail industry. Startups like Birchbox and Dollar Shave Club are prime examples of companies that are succeeding with a subscription commerce-based approach. LUSH Cosmetics is the latest company to try to cash in on the subscription commerce phenomenon.

It's more than a horse race. A look at some of the winners, losers and disruptors of the retail landscape sheds light on an industry navigating unprecedented change at the hands of digital technology, which is reshaping longtime shopping habits. But the retail formats gaining and losing ground also echo larger social trends redefining consumer culture, like the disappearing middle class.

For the last year or so, retailers have seen dismal outlooks for malls across America. It's no secret that today's shoppers are looking for more than just products; they expect an experience. Simon Malls and Refinery 29 are trying to give them that. Refinery 29, one of the first websites to introduce fashion blogging as a business, is celebrating its 10-year anniversary by partnering with Simon Malls for a series of one-day pop-up shops called The Shopping Block. The collaboration between the fashion publication and commercial real estate firm is one of the first of its kind.

Toys"R"Us, the world's largest specialty toy store chain, on Tuesday announced plans to hire 45,000 workers at its 877 U.S. stores and distribution centers for the 2014 holidays, more than doubling its total workforce. The jobs include sales associates, stock crew and omnichannel fulfillment teams, as well as distribution center workers and department managers. The news comes days after rival Wal-Mart announced it's hiring 60,000 seasonal workers and offering additional hours to its current employees for the holidays.

After years of thwarted efforts to break into banking, Wal-Mart is making its biggest foray yet into everyday financial services. The nation's largest retailer is teaming up with Green Dot, known for its prepaid payment cards, to supply checking accounts to almost anyone over 18 who passes an ID check. Daniel Eckert, senior vice president at Wal-Mart, said on Tuesday that the accounts would be available nationwide by the end of October. The accounts are intended to be low-cost alternatives to traditional bank checking accounts, with no fees for overdrafts or bounced checks and no minimum account balance.

Amazon dot buy forward slash … what? Our minds are spinning with the possible creative uses Amazon.com might get out of its latest purchase — the entire top-level domain name .buy, which recently sold for a cool $4.59 million to the online retail giant. Other top-level domain bidders included Google, Uniregistry, Nu Dot Co, Donuts, and Minds+Machines. Only two bidders, however, offered to spend more than $1.5 million for .buy. Google also missed out on the other two domain names offered as part of ICANN's latest "auction of last resort." 

Customers are driven by the need for instant gratification more than ever, expecting boundless product options at their fingertips and 24-hour (or less) delivery models. To compete with bellwethers like Amazon.com and even Google, companies are exchanging traditional distribution strategies for something more flexible, focusing less on labor and production and more on inventory and proximity to consumer marketplaces. Retailers and distributors, however, cannot make these adjustments in isolation. In order to successfully transform their sales and operations, organizations must modify their back-office tax and accounting practices accordingly.

Chico's approach to marketing evolves each year, striving to break through all the clutter to reach current and potential customers in a more relevant and targeted way. To further this, come 2015 the retailer will invest in omnichannel in a meaningful way, including automation, cloud, new point-of-sale systems, RFID, customer engagement and mobile apps. Seeing positive changes from these investments, the retailer anticipates even further gains in 2015 and beyond, as the initiatives are expanding even further and rolled out to even more boutiques. 

More Toys"R"Us stores will feature in-location Claire's shops, broadening its offerings for tween girls beyond toys and video games. The companies said Wednesday they would expand their partnership to about 100 stores in Europe and 12 locations in the U.S. by the end of the year after a successful European pilot program. The company's Times Square and FAO Schwartz stores in New York will debut their Claire's shops this week; the rest of the U.S. spots will open by the end of October in locations from Pennsylvania to California.